9 Takeaways from David Ortiz's Angry Essay About Living With Steroid Accusations

Published by Derek Jeter's Players' Tribune.

No baseball player has been the subject of more steroid speculation while continuing to enjoy a successful career than David Ortiz. Ever since his name appeared on a list of players flagged for performance-enhancing drug usage in 2003, his gaudy stat lines have been called into question by journalists, Major League Baseball, and, most of all, Yankees fans.

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Ortiz has been deflecting questions and denying accusations for years, but not until recently have his true feelings been known. In a piece for Derek Jeter's website The Players' Tribune, which puts the pen straight into the hands of the athletes, Big Papi sounded off on the accusations that have been following him for his entire Red Sox career. Here are some highlights.

1. Major League Baseball showed up unannounced to Ortiz's house in the Dominican Republic at 7:30 a.m. to drug test him.

Drug-testers without borders:

I was ready to shoot somebody, man. Literally. I was sleeping at my house in the Dominican this winter when I heard a banging on my front door at 7:30 in the morning. Now, I got security. My kids and family are sleeping in the house. I wasn't expecting anyone. Who in the hell is banging on my door? I come down the stairs yelling like, "Who the f*** is there?"

Who was there were two MLB employees ready to take Ortiz's blood. "My kids are so used to this by now that they're laughing and taking pictures," Ortiz wrote. "This is nothing new."

2. He claims he's been tested more than anyone in the league (over 80 times) since 2004.

They say these tests are random. If it's really random, I should start playing the damn lottery. Some people still think the testing is a joke. It's no joke. Ten times a season these guys come into the clubhouse or my home with their briefcases. I have never failed a single one of those tests and I never will.

4. He's not sorry for his slow home run trots.

Ortiz has also drawn flak for taking his time as he rounds the bases, which some consider a form of showing up the pitcher.

Yeah, I'm gonna have fun. It's who I am. I just hit a baseball 500 damn feet. I grew up in the gutter and now I'm out here in front of the world living my dream and you all want me to feel sad? I can't do it. I'm here to bring joy to this game.

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5. He attributes his inflated late-career numbers to mental toughness.

What most Ortiz critics point to as evidence of his PED usage is how his numbers ballooned after he reached his thirties, which is when most players' production begins to decline.

People ask me all the time how I turned into such a monster in my early 30s. "How are you doing this? You must be cheating." You know how? Physically, I was always a bull. But I learned to play the game with my head and my heart and my balls. I got smarter. I got mentally tougher.

6. He resents that he will be remembered only as a power hitter.

Papi, you're a 6'5" behemoth known for hitting home runs. Of course you're going to be remembered as a power hitter.

I became a great hitter because of my mental preparation. This is a thinking man's game. You can be the strongest dude alive and you're not going to be able to hit a sinker with 40,000 people screaming at you. That's what really makes me mad when I think about the way I will be remembered. They're only going to remember my power. They're not going to remember the hours and hours and hours of work in the film room. They're not going to remember the BP. They're not going to remember me for my intelligence. Despite all I've done in this game, I'm just the big DH from the Dominican. They turn you into a character, man.

7. He "wanted to kill" a reporter who profiled him as a steroid user.

This is only one of likely countless similar locker room interactions Oritz has been forced to handle over the course of the past 10 years.

In 2013, I came off the DL and started hot. My first 20 games I was hitting like .400. And the reporter with the red jheri curl from The Boston Globe comes into the locker room says, "You're from the Dominican. You're older. You fit the profile of a steroid user. Don't you think you're a prime suspect?"

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He's saying this with a straight face. I had taken like 70 at-bats. Anybody can get hot and hit .400 with 70 at-bats. I was stunned. I'm like, I'm Dominican? I fit the profile? Are you kidding me?

I wanted to kill this guy. But you can't react. That's what they want. They want you to get angry so they can bury you.

8. He never "knowingly" took steroids.

Several players that have been flagged as PED users claim that they tested positive because of ingredients contained within over-the-counter supplements they had been taking. Considering how murky the MLB's drug policy was in the early '00s, it's hard to tell which players knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs and which players unknowingly ingested relatively innocuous chemicals that for whatever reason showed up on the drug testers' radar.

Let me tell you something. Say whatever you want about me — love me, hate me. But I'm no bullshitter. I never knowingly took any steroids. If I tested positive for anything, it was for something in pills I bought at the damn mall. If you think that ruins everything I have done in this game, there is nothing I can say to convince you different.

9. For Ortiz, the worst part of the accusations is having to explain to his kids that he's not a cheater.

Ortiz writes about how when the list of flagged players was released and everyone started calling him a cheater, he was forced to explain to his son that he wasn't. "As a father, that's a moment you're never prepared for," he wrote.

In 75 years, when I'm dead and gone, I won't care if I'm in the Hall of Fame. I won't care if a bunch of baseball writers know the truth about who I am in my soul and what I have done in this game. I care that my children know the truth.

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